Conventionally, fishing reels which have a spool journalled to the side frame of the reel body have been known as double bearing reels. In operation, an angler uses a small-sized double bearing reel mounted to a fishing rod, by gripping the reel body together with the fishing rod with his hand handle, whereby the reel body is provided with a thumb rest on which the thumb of his hand gripping the reel body is to be placed.
The thumb rest is mounted across both of the side frames and is usually positioned radially upwardly of the spool and ahead in the direction of drawing out a fishing line therefrom.
In the above-described type of thumb rest, a problem exists in that at the end of casting of the line from the spool in free rotation, the rotational speed of the spool carrying the wound line does not lower speed of the while the line being drawn out lowers, so that the line is drawn out in surplus and becomes tangled in a ring around the pool, i.e. so-called backlash. In this case, the tangled line must be unraveled quickly to be placed again in proper condition, but such disposal may be hindered by the physical position of the thumb rest. Also, for reels which include a level wind mechanism ahead of the spool, the presence of the thumb rest makes it difficult to pass the line through the level wind mechanism. Such problems will become more significant if the thumb rest is larger in width to facilitate placement of the angler's thumb on the rest regardless of the size of his hand. Hence, the conventional thumb rest is made smaller in width, whereby the angler experiences pain in the thumb of his hand gripping the reel body. As a result, he does not grip the reel sufficiently tightly, resulting in an adverse effect on his handle operation for fishing.